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- Mary Jane Schaefer: I think these are crucial, important decisions, what to leave out of any literary work, maybe any...
- DAMIEN HIRST—AN ART MARKET BUBBLE?. (1)
- Kate Bush: I hope you enjoy my visit to the Damien Hirst show as much as I did The Technical Impossibility of...
- THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISODE OF THE SIMPSONS ? (COMMENT). (1)
- Nick: Homer does has success as the team’s best hitter until Mr. Burns places a bet with a rival factory owner...
- THE “RIGHT TO EDIT”. (1)
- Lee: A relevant Simpsons clip.
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- Dick Weisfelder: Today’s Toledo Blade has an article on the importation of live Asian carp to Canada to serve...
- Lee: The downside is that red squirrels are way cuter than their gray cousins. Hitchens on the subject.
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- Dick Weisfelder: When I look back at one of the Potter books, it’s usually this one. There are just a lot of...
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- Dick Weisfelder: Didn’t we all meet her somewhere in grade or high school?
- ADAPTING GATSBY. (1)
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Monthly Archives: May 2009
PUTTING CLINICAL TRIALS AHEAD OF HUMAN LIVES (AGAIN).
PUTTING CLINICAL TRIALS AHEAD OF HUMAN LIVES (AGAIN). I have posted on this subject a number of times, for example here. This story from the weekend New York Times describes the efforts of the family of a young man with … Continue reading
VALUING FLATNESS.
VALUING FLATNESS. Deeply set windows, rusticated stone, and the resulting play of shadows are characteristic of the facades of Renaissance palazzos. Renaissance artists were enchanted with perspective and the three dimensionality of the world. The essay I linked to yesterday … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, art
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WHAT BABIES SEE THAT WE DON’T.
WHAT BABIES SEE THAT WE DON’T. When Annalisa (a future artist) was a baby, she took a keen interest in shadows. Watching her delight, I realized that I had not noticed shadows since I was a child. My eyes were … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, art
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SHADOWS AND LIGHT.
SHADOWS AND LIGHT. This photo essay has changed the way I look at the world. The photos demonstrate the difference between window treatments in modern architecture and in traditional buildings. The third photo in the essay shows “modest tenement apartment … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, art
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OPTICAL ILLUSIONS AND CURVE BALLS.
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS AND CURVE BALLS. There is a long-standing contention, alluded to at the end of this wikipedia article on the curve ball, that the curve ball is an optical illusion. As described, in the article, physicists have no trouble … Continue reading
Posted in Baseball, Sports
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TALES TOLD BY A DOG.
TALES TOLD BY A DOG. On May 11, the Wall Street Journal had a review by Charles Harrington Elster of CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE by John Sutherland, which seems to be, as the review describes it, “a book crammed with…amusing trivia” … Continue reading
Posted in Literature
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ECONOMIC MODELS AS METAPHOR.
ECONOMIC MODELS AS METAPHOR. Deirdre McCloskey wrote a wonderful book, THE RHETORIC OF ECONOMICS. BEING THERE illustrates the way so much of what we read in economics is phrased in terms of metaphor. But even the equations used in economics … Continue reading
Posted in Economics
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A GREAT MOVIE ABOUT ECONOMICS.
A GREAT MOVIE ABOUT ECONOMICS. Peter Sellers starred in BEING THERE, playing a severely retarded gardener, Chance, who is mistaken for a wise economist because of what he says about the economy. Here, from IMDB, is an extended quotation which … Continue reading
Posted in Economics
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SEEING PATTERNS THAT AREN’T THERE.
SEEING PATTERNS THAT AREN’T THERE. In the interview, Philip Tetlock tells about an experiment which matched up Yale undergraduates against a Norwegian rat in a “T maze.” There was a reward available randomly 60% of the time if you turned … Continue reading
Posted in Science
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DO EXPERTS KNOW ANYTHING?
DO EXPERTS KNOW ANYTHING? There are three major parts to THE BLACK SWAN; Part 2 is entitled “We Just Can’t Predict.” Taleb is not just saying that economists can’t predict. In Part 2 Taleb discusses the work of Philip Tetlock, … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Journalism, Politics
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